11 Months

11 Months...Both Benjamin and Violet are asleep, Joel is out with college students, and I got on-line to plan for little miss Violets birthday party next month, but for some reason I am procrastinating.  Its probably related to my denial that my baby will soon be 1 year old.  Joel told me that soon I won't have a baby anymore and I assured him that I will always have 2 babies.  Always.  

As far as Violet related news goes, there is always the subject matter of sleeping.  Violet had been sleeping through the night for almost a week at her 10 month milestone, and continued to do so for another 2ish weeks.  Then I took Echinacea to combat a bug of some sort, going through the house, and it killed my milk supply. Violet got hungry and hungry babies don't sleep well.  My milk supply came back, but the non-sleep habit returned, and actually got a little worse every couple nights.  This last Wednesday, Benjamin started coming down with a cold and by Friday night Violet had a 103.5 fever that stuck around till Sunday night.  We were waking up every 1 1/2 hrs with Violet, and Benjamin slept in our bed, as to not be wakened by his sister, resulting in Daddy getting involved in kick boxing matches, against his will.  To top it all off, Violet didn't want to nurse the last 2ish days, and therefore didn't go back to sleep well (and when you get up every hour, not going back to sleep, is a problem!)...Tired doesn't begin to describe our first emotion when we wake up. Well, her fever left, and she started to half-heartedly nurse again, so although she might only be at 85% health still, I was not about to return to our habits of long...so as of 9:30a.m. today, I have stopped nursing Violet to sleep.  We sing a song or two and down she goes in her crib.  I can happily say, Violet has put her self to sleep in a very brief amount of time, 3 times today, and even let out a cry just a minute ago, and it was one cry, and back to sleep she went.  This is monumental people. We will be staying in a hotel two nights this weekend, and pray that we develop a habit this week, and don't undo it, this weekend. Wow, this paragraph is entirely too long, considering I haven't been that stressed about Violets sleep.  She did so well for those three weeks, and I know it won't take long, to get back in the swing of things!

As for development...WOW!  Violet is officially taking one or two steps.  She is scooting along things pretty fast, and if you hold something that she wants (ex: the remote) two or three steps away, she will walk to it...much farther than that, and she doesn't even try.  She free stands quite a bit (which she loves to do in the bath tub...yikes!) and thinks she's pretty cool, and then doesn't even fall down, but rather, slowly lowers herself to the squatting position, then sits.  

As for other motor skills, she was clapping at 10 months and has now passionately started waving to Joel and Benjamin when I ask if she's ready to go ninite.  After she waves she hits the back of her hand against her mouth attempting to blow kisses.  I would like to think she has the "more" sign down for meal time, but when I stop lying to myself I would admit that she just is just obsessed with clapping, and screams a deadly scream as her "more" command.  I really need to do something about that.  Oh and she has dominated SOOO BIG!  She doesn't need you to ask her how big she is, she just likes to tell you at random. :)

Violet and Benjamin LOVE chasing each other.  Joel and I were getting upset with Benjamin for being too rough with his sister, but have recently notice that she totally asks for it.  One of them is going to get regrettably hurt one of these times, but that's what siblings do, right?

These are some of our random favorite things about Violet right now:

• her dance that she does when she likes a song, or sees Benjamin dancing with momma...its more of a very unstable bounce than a dance, but its definitely a dance attempt :)
• her very long cuddles on Daddy's shoulder.  (Momma has a love/hate relationship with this activity, because it is VERY RARELY duplicated on her shoulder, but it is oh, so sweet!)
• the way she burrows her head into...anything, and presses her tongue against her teeth to make a hissing sort of laugh.  It's so stink'n cute.
• this one I can't say that I love, but it is noteworthy.  When Violet gets determined, she loves to jut out her chin.  This scares me for a very determined personality popping through, but we shall see!

Violets feet update...  Joel and I took her to a orthopedic surgeon at Blank Children's hospital last week.  It was a great visit and I had confidence in the doctor...much unlike her previous visit with a podiatrist.  Dr. Ferguson told us that many children get "smushed" in their small living quarters pre-birth, and then take the next 3-6 months to stretch themselves out.  Many children will fix their mis-shapen feet in the first few months, and if their legs/hips were mis-shapen have difficulty self-correcting.  Violet has done the opposite.  She self-corrected her upper leg, and her feet have remained noticeably curved inward.  She gave us some stretches and foot manipulations to do multiple times a day with Violet, and we will re-visit Dr. Ferguson in December.  If the stretching has helped, the doctor will be able to clearly see improvement by using a measurement involving lining up the heel and between certain toes.  If there has not been any improvement than we look at the option of series of casting.  We appreciate your prayers!  (prayers that the stretching is effective, and prayer that I remember to do them!)

And lastly...I think we might have gained a half pound finally.  When I say finally, I mean in the last 5 months. :)  She was 17 lbs at 6 months (I think, I'll have to check) and we are finally at 17.5 lbs. I was confused why Benjamin seemed so much older when we were creeping up on 1 yr of age (if you remember, I was 1 1/2  months pregnant by now!  Say WHAT?!), but I think I figured it out.  Benjamin hair seemed fuller, he had a considerable amount more teeth, and he weighed 9 or 10 lbs heavier...thats a lot of lbs when you're only dealing with 17ish vs 26ish!

Well thats all for now, folks.  This is the first in 3 nights that the kiddos are sharing a room, after being sick, so this momma needs to get to bed.  Who knows what the night will bring!

g'nite!